Thursday, 16 July 2015

Taffy Mail Review - July 2015

Another knock at the door, another foodie box delivered for our sampling delights; and this time we’re talking another box of sweet, sweet candy! (Or sweets… no… wait…. This is Taffy Mail, a USA Candy subscription box service – so Candy is definitely the correct word).

A classic box costs £14.99 a month which includes 10 - 12 pieces of candy and a can and free package and posting, and you can get your own box by visiting Taffy Mail's brilliant easy to use website.

As you may have read I am currently on a bit of a diet at the moment so I let my fiancé Neil do most of the taste testing for this review but I did manage to try a few bits too. Here is what we thought of the box:

Wow! They cram a lot into the small box don’t they? As you can see there’s a mixture of things, mostly candy, and range from really big packets to small, individual chews. I can’t wait to get stuck in (although my dentist might be going “NOOOOOOOOO! RESIST!!!!”).

As a regular visitor to the USA, there are some favourites in here that I’m familiar with; but, there’re also a bunch of things that are new to me!

Big Peach Soda

Starting with one of the bigger items in the box, the can of peach soda. This is a carbonated drink made by “Big Red” (in Austin, Texas) and tastes very much of sweet peaches.

It’s quite nice and I’d like to use words like “refreshing” and makes a change; here in England we tend not to have many peach flavoured things (except for peaches, which are naturally flavoured). Something nice and different. The Big Peach soda gets a thumbs up from us.

Snickers Peanut Butter Squared

Something I’d not tried before, but couldn't wait to sample; a Snickers Peanut Butter Squared bar. Peanut butter candies seem to be sneaking their way into the UK now – the fact that you can find Reeses peanut butter products outside of specialist stores being a real indicator of that fact; but this is one that hasn't snuck over to the UK yet. Snickers, in the USA, have a much wider range than they have in the UK. UK – one flavour (ignoring the limited edition “more nuts/ caramel/ chocolate editions that snuck out last year) – USA – lots of flavours. Although in my travels I’d not encountered the Peanut butter squared bar before. Long story short, it’s like a snickers, but with peanut butter instead of peanuts (although you still get a few, small ones in there).

It is nice having the two squares in the packet so you can (if you have enough self-control) save one for later.
I think I prefer this flavour to the regular ones!

Swedish fish

Swedish Fish, which I think aren't actually from Sweden, are little gummy (jelly?) sweets. Think Jelly Babies and you'll be on the right lines. Unlike Jelly babies and similar, these are thin and have a little bit of a different texture to them - and aren't coated in any sort of powder. Very nice! A nice, fruity (not fishy) flavour. To be honest, they're something we've had before but was, and still are a favourite! They are very moreish!

5th Avenue bar

This is a new one to us; I don't know if it's one I haven't seen, or just one I've seen but not sampled. Still, it's chocolate and peanut butter - what's not to like? (Pauses to bite) Mmmm. I have to say that this is good. It's fairly similar to "butterfingers" with crunchy - almost like peanut-butter brittle or something surrounded in chocolate (rather than a smooth or crunchy peanut butter filling). Very nice - and something definitely on my "to look out for" list in the future.

Cow tales

Another one "new to us"; the cow tales bar is a mix of caramel and … white stuff... um... it says "cream center" - so imagine the sort of thing you'd find in a custard cream biscuit or something. The caramel has a fudge-like quality to it, and the white cream stuff is sweet and I think tastes pretty good. It's an interesting, if slightly different combination of things. Not a bad one though.

Jolly Rancher Chews

An old favourite here; we have long been fans of Jolly Ranchers - particularly the boiled sweets (or "hard candy" as Americans tend to refer to it!). They're always packed with flavour and really seem to get the fruit tastes spot on. These chews are no exception - essentially they're like an American Opal Fruit (what do you mean they're not called that any more!) but with slightly different flavours. Very nice, very tasty - and not too bad a box size.

Tootsie Roll

Another old favourite here, the Tootsie roll. Now whenever I try and describe Tootsie Rolls (or the other Tootsie variations) to people, I always start off with "It's kinda like a chocolate flavoured chew that doesn't quite really taste of chocolate but tastes of something similar but not quite and you either like it or you don't."

So how do I describe this? I guess the easiest would be like that. I mean, if you imagine chocolate - but not the stuff of Cadbury or Galaxy - rather the cheap or strangely foreign chocolate you'd get making up some of those odd Easter eggs or Christmas novelty shapes - and you're about halfway there. And instead of it being chocolate, it is like a chew bar with that sort of flavour...

Anyway, we like these - and always have (since we've known about their existence).

Airheads

Another favourite (we have a few favourites) is the Airhead chews; they're soft, chewy candy, but - as you can see with ours - come in a few flavours that aren't regular English ones. This one is Grape - which is a "favourite flavour we almost never get over here" one for us. Nice, tasty and grape-a-licious.

Dots

Dot's are an old favourite of Neil's; these fez-shaped, jelly box-candies are ones he looks forward to - and often brings back on his travels. They are small, gummy-jelly things and taste pretty much as you'd expect. Fruity with a certain moreish quality.

Mint M&Ms

Like with Snickers, some favourite brands we actually get over here in UK have a much wider range in the USA; one such brand is M&Ms that have dozens of different varieties - compared to our measly "with peanuts" and "without peanuts" varieties here in the UK. In the Taffy Mail box this month was the Mint (Mint and Dark Chocolate) which is one of our favourite flavour combinations.

Mike and Ike

Mike and Ike are another candy we've encountered in the past, but this month's box has a special "Jurassic World" tropical fruits box of Mike and Ikes which contains a special "mystery" egg shaped candy; well, we've tried it and the mystery is (not saying - it would spoil things!). The rest of the box is full of the usual Mike and Ike flavoured gummy candy ( Kiwi-banana, Caribbean Punch, Strawberry-banana, paradise punch and mango) and is really nice and fruity!

One thing we do tend to notice about USA candy is that they seem to get fruity flavours right!

We loved them!

Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops lollipop

Last but not least is Tootsie Caramel Apple pops (lollipop). Now I always have problems with lollipops - I can never get them out the packet without breaking them - so I was happy this time that the lolly stayed whole and on the stick.. Now I was expecting something to taste like caramel apple -but there's more too it than that. Actually there is a line of green apple hard candy surrounded by a circle of caramel.

It tastes delicious! Like a candy apple on a stick!

And that was our box, we were sent the "classic" box (10-12 types of candy and a can of soda) priced at £14.99 per month. Taffy Mail also do a "lite" box (4-5 types of candy) priced at £7.49 per month and an "extra" box (up to 20 types of candy, a can and at least one premium item) priced at £24.99.

If you would like to get sent your own "favourite piece of mail", then you can sign up over at Taffy Mail.

We also have a discount code for our blog readers - simply use the code : WEBKINS at the checkout to get 10% off your first three months subscription! Bargain!

All in all, it was a really great selection and we were very impressed and hope that you will be too!

Disclaimer: The Classic Taffy Mail box was sent to me for the purposes of this post. All opinions are my own.

its ok but i prefer candy chaos because you get more in the boxes they ship and you are not tied down to a subscription so anytime you order you can use a discount code :) not just on the first order only an on their site people can make requests for candy they want to see them ship an then all the candy is from the requests they get :) i asked for Strawberry Fanta an a month later they were shipping it

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About Me And My Blog

Hello everyone, my name's Ellen and I'm in my mid-thirties and from Somerset. I write about my life and my dogs. I also enjoy entering competitions, reading and spending time with my family. I also review various products. Thanks for visiting.